Super Street Fighter IV Impressions

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Testing out Hakan, the newly announced Turkish wrestler.

By Charles Onyett

With the full roster of playable characters now public, Capcom showed off a build of its upcoming Super Street Fighter IV, allowing members of the press some hands-on time. I had a chance to try out the slippery new character, Hakan, for a few rounds to try and get a sense of how he played. Producer Yoshinori Ono was also on hand, answering questions and providing insight into some of the changes and additions in the latest entry in Capcom's venerable fighting franchise.

In case you missed Street Fighter IV last year, Super Street Fighter IV seems like it'll be the better game to pick up. With 10 new fighters joining the entire cast from the previous game, new online modes, more moves, and those quirky barrel and car smashing mini-games from Street Fighter II, it's a fact that this version of the game offers more. The question at this point is whether the new stuff makes the game worth getting for someone who already owns Street Fighter IV, something I can't really answer yet.

I can, however, talk a little bit about Hakan. He's a large fighter, a Turkish wrestler covered in oil, and capable of pulling off some pretty weird moves. Take his ultra moves, for instance. In Super Street Fighter IV, you get to pick from one of two ultras, which are selected before a match from a small pop up window that appears while you're picking character outfit colors. The move you've selected for the match is then displayed at the versus screen, so at least in player versus player versus mode you'll know which move the other fighter has equipped.

That does matter, since different moves are useful in different situations. For Hakan, his first ultra move is called Oil Coaster, triggered by clockwise 360 degree rotations of the joystick (or D-pad) and three punch buttons. When successfully entered and executed, this move launches an opponent into the air, bringing them back down on Hakan's shoulders. He then proceeds to slide the fighter all around himself before slipping them swiftly to the edge of the fight stage, doing big damage. Yeah it doesn't really make sense, but then again neither does throwing fireballs.

Should you decide to equip the second ultra move, called Oil Combination Hold, then you'll find it works in a different way. By tapping down three times followed by the kick buttons, Hakan will drop to the ground. If you do this while your opponent is standing still, you're going to look silly, waste your opportunity to perform an ultra, and probably curse a few times since Hakan will shortly theafter get back up as if nothing happened. That's because this move is actually meant to be used as an opponent jumps in. If they land on Hakan while he's on the ground, he'll then spin around a bunch of times and again take advantage of the oil to shoot them into the side of the stage, doing damage and causing them to make a silly face.

When not doing ultras, Hakan is deceptively quick. He doesn't move around very fast normally, but his special moves can shoot him across the stage in a flash. For instance, he can slide on his belly, tripping an opponent. Once they're down, Hakan can then flip back up into the air and slam down on top of them. He's also able to take advantage of a number of throws, including one where he jumps at an opponent from a distance to initiate the move. Hakan can also drop to his stomach and lie flat on the ground, which seems to duck under quite a few attacks, bypassing the need to block. It'll be interesting to see the implications of an ability like this once people are able to get some more time with the character. If you've watched the announcement trailer, you've also seen how Hakan can dump more oil on himself during a fight. This isn't a taunt, but actually alters the way some of his moves work and gives him the benefit of slightly enhanced defensive properties. Again, the full implications of this aren't really clear without more playtime.

So where'd the idea for Hakan come from? Yoshinori Ono mentioned a designer at Capcom had one day passed along a YouTube clip of actual Turkish wrestling, and Ono figured it might make a good fit. He says Street Fighter is a franchise that's never been about the pretty boys, and that there's always been a sort of wackiness to it, and the addition of Hakan to the roster adds a unique element that helps strengthen the game's personality.

One thing that wasn't on display at Capcom's event that Ono touched on was the online component of the game. If you remember, some downloadable content was released in the months following Street Fighter IV's launch that added a championship mode to online play, providing a more structured tournament-like framework for battles between players outside of the ranked matches. According to Ono, we may very well see something similar to this following the release of Street Fighter IV, though no timeframe or specifics were given. "We've already got some ideas, the gears are turning," he said.

Even without that content, whatever it winds up being, Super Street Fighter IV's online sounds like it'll be far more robust than the original's, offering options for teams of people to square off against each other online. While two fight, the rest can spectate the match, similar to an experience in an arcade. And if a match is particularly good, you can save a replay to your hard drive and even share it with friends within the Street Fighter interface, which could be pretty cool for hardcore fans who like to review matches and learn from their mistakes. While you're waiting for these match lobbies to fill up, you'll also be able to head into arcade mode to kill time beating up on the computer until everything's ready to go.

The game's being readied for launch this April, so expect more updates once we've gotten an opportunity to spend more time trying out each of the new fighters.